After
his dalliance in the realm of sci-fi with his last film, the much-maligned Interstellar, Christopher Nolan has
returned to far more grounded fare (both literally and figuratively) with Dunkirk.
The title refers to the successful evacuation of most of the British army
after it was pinned down on Dunkirk beach in early 1940, at a time in World War
II when Hitler’s armies were enjoying near-perfect success running across most
of Western Europe. It was immediately
lionized by the British propaganda machine as a shining example of British
virtue, and Churchill’s address to the British Parliament in the wake of the
evacuation remains one of the most well-known and inspired bits of
speechmaking in human history.

Christopher
Nolan has been criticized for a lot of things in the past, including being too
white-and-male heavy in his movies, dragging out scenes that make his films
feel longer than they are, and relying on heady, pseudo-philosophical
monologues by lead characters to convey the ideas or messages in his films. But while the white-maleness is still here in
abundance (and is a knock against the film), he works at a far more concise and
economical clip than he usually does; Dunkirk
comes in just under two hours, but it’s all so packed that every part hits just
the right notes before moving on. It’s
also largely void of dialogue, especially in key action scenes, focusing on the
sights and sounds of war and how masses of people instinctively react when their
lives are all on the line. The end result
is one of the most technically impressive cinematic experiences of the year, and
easily ranks alongside Inception and The Dark Knight as one of the finest
works of Nolan’s career.

It
should be said upfront that this is not a historical procedural meant to
provide an accurate understanding of how the actual events at Dunkirk played
out. The familiar historical event ends
up being nothing more than backdrop for Nolan to dig into the visceral,
minute-to-minute experiences of trying to survive in war zone, and given what
we know about PTSD and trauma and how it distorts one’s perception of time,
taking this approach makes this the perfect fertile ground for Nolan’s twin
obsessions with time and memory, and how the two can be changed or manipulated
in our minds.

Loosely
split into three parts, we simultaneously follow a handful of privates on the
beach itself over the course of a week, a day-long trip to and from the beach
by a private citizen and his sons to help in the rescue effort, and an
hour-long flight to the fighting zone by RAF pilots assigned to fight off
Luftwaffe bombers. Though each segment
of the movie occupies a wholly different space of time, the film constantly
cuts from one timeline to the next, jumping from day in the cockpit to night on
the beach after a sub attack, and then back again. It’s probably best to arm yourself with this
knowledge beforehand, not because the film does a poor job of piecing together the
disparate parts (the three timelines eventually do converge in the final rescue
sequence), but simply because, that way, you can get more out of the experience
and better appreciate the artistry from the very beginning.

Given
that another longstanding criticism of Nolan has been his inability to really
grasp human emotions in his characters and dialogue, the lack of talking for
much of the running time ends up being a major strength as well. Nolan has a masterful list of actors he draws
on for each of his films, and his regulars Tom Hardy and Cilian Murphy (plus
newcomers like Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, and Fionn Whitehead) are exactly
the sort of performers who know how to deliver character and presence in a scene
whether or not you give them anything to say.

This
film has already been considerably lauded for its technical prowess as a big-budget,
procedural war drama, and in this realm alone the film’s credentials are damn
near impeachable. I expect this movie to
rake in technical accolades come awards season, and the fact that this is a World
War II movie also has me betting that Nolan just might finally get his
long-awaited Best Director nomination.

Not
that the film is above some common Nolan criticisms; while the all-maleness of
the film’s cast is not so out of place given the historical setting, there has
been blowback about its whiteness. Not
only are all the speaking roles given over to white men, the only non-white
actors even glimpsed are a handful of French African soldiers in an early
scene. In particular, a number of people
have called out the absence of regiments of Indian soldiers who were, in fact,
present on the beaches and took part in the evacuation. There is also a particular part of Churchill’s
famous speech (included in the movie) that is often glossed over in internet
memes, a part where he insists that if the British Isles were to fall to
Germany, Britain’s Imperial colonies around the world would “carry on the struggle”
to liberate them. It sounds wonderful
within the context of the speech (like I said, it IS inspired speechwriting),
but whether or not the many populations and peoples forcefully subjugated by
the British crown would in reality have so willingly laid down their lives
under such circumstances is something very much up to debate, especially if
they can’t be graced with a presence said Imperial power’s war movies.

Dunkirk certainly does give the
impression at times of being a lionizing portrait of British courage and of the
nobleness of its Empire, notwithstanding Nolan’s protestations that the film is
apolitical. The music, swelling as the
boats of patriotic private citizens appear on the horizon. A lone soldier, lying on his back and
defiantly firing his rifle in the air at an incoming German plane before being
blown to bits. A burning Spitfire framed
by a setting sun. Tom Hardy. Just Tom Hardy.

All
of this is there, but as I watched this film a second time, I couldn’t help but
feel that it was undercutting the supposed glorification of these moments in
interesting ways. This is most noticeable
amongst the privates trapped on the beach.
Although they are celebrated and lauded when they return home, we know
exactly how desperate petty, selfish, and even downright savage they were when
caught up in the machines of death.
Throughout the film, selfishness, fear, and anger amongst the British
are often shown to be just as deadly or dangerous as German bombs. A while after we see that one soldier firing
his rifle at the planes, another soldier insists that the civilians coming in
with their boats have no business being there because “they don’t even have any
guns.” To which Mark Rylance rather pointedly
asks the soldier if his rifle did him any good against the U-boat that sank his
ship.

Even
the direct quotation of Churchill’s speech at the end, with all its soaring
rhetoric, is read, not with joy or bombast, but in the exhausted monotone of a
shell-shocked soldier. He is interrupted
by a fellow soldier whose not even paying attention, and when he’s done, after
the camera has cut to black after the swelling-music-shot that would usually
end this sort of film, we suddenly return to that soldier sitting in the
train. He’s finished Churchill’s speech,
glances up with a blank look in his eyes, then drops his head once more and
turns the page.

That
particular ending, more than anything else, has stuck with me, the same way
that the final shot of Inception stuck
with me. This is an excellent movie, one
of the best of 2017 to date, but I can’t shake the feeling that many people
both lauding and criticizing the film are missing some of its larger
reflections on just how brutally unnecessary all this violence is, love of
country or no. Regardless of where you
fall on this spectrum, Nolan has once again delivered a remarkable and
memorable experience that absolutely deserves to be seen on the biggest screen
possible, and then dissected to death afterwards.